Wednesday, 4 June 2014

Arrows of Indra: Dice in the Bharata Kingdoms

In Jagat, the setting for Arrows of Indra, dice are a hugely important pass-time, and also of significance in ritual (as they were in epic India).

The “dice” of the Bharata lands (or of the historical India) are
typically cowrie shells or knucklebones; though in some cities they use
square (2 or 4-sided) sticks to the same effect.

Cowrie shells were
typically used in gaming and gambling, while knucklebones were used for
the former but also had a powerful ritual significance; the bones
(coming from dead creatures) were connected to Kali in her form as
Nirrti (the utterly black manifestation of Kali who represents
dissolution). Thus the knucklebones are a powerful oracular tool; used
by shamans or priests alike, typically by rolling three knucklebones to
get one of 64 combinations of possible fortunes.
Cowrie shells were usually rolled in groups of three or four; where
the top (opening) part of the shell was “1″ and the bottom was “0″.
However, rolling all 0s was usually given a double-top score (so that
with four shells, rolling four 0s meant you had a result of 8; so that
the possible results for the shells was 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8).

Just as Bharata citizens like to gamble on the kalari arena, and
horse races, and almost anything else, they love to gamble on dice
games. Most dice games involved the use of a board or track, where
pieces must make a full circuluation in order to win (in a game not
unlike parchesi, ludo, or “Sorry”, with the chance of eating other
pieces). But it is also common to have straightforward rolling-contests
where after a number of tosses the higher roll wins.

(it should be noted that a dice game forms a crucial part of the
Mahabharata, as the even that leads to the inevitability of the
apocalyptic Kurukshetra War; where the fate of the entire Kuru kingdom is gambled on with a roll of the dice)